Irene brings back memories

East Coast residents recall powerful hurricane of 1938

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - What Evelyn Katzman remembers most about the Great New England Hurricane of 1938 are the floating store mannequins.

A self-described Army brat, she had recently moved to Providence with her parents from Atlanta. She was 30, newly employed at Cherry and Webb, a specialty store downtown. It was Sept. 21, a Wednesday.

The elevator wasn't working - the power had just cut out - so she went to tell her supervisor. That's when she saw them: two human forms, from the coat shop across the way, floating down Westminster Street.

The manager of another department store had just called to sound a warning.

"He said, 'Lock the doors, the water's coming in,' " said Katzman, now 103 and living in Providence at an assisted-living facility not far from the head of the Narragansett Bay.

It has been nearly 73 years since the so-called Great New England Hurricane - one of the most powerful and destructive storms ever to hit southern New England. The storm now bearing down on the Northeast, Irene, has drawn comparisons to the one from way back then which, according to the National Weather Service, killed nearly 600 people and injured 1,700.

About 8,900 houses across southern New England were destroyed. More than 15,000 others were damaged.

It brought its wrath first to New York's Long Island, then to Milford, Conn. It sped northward at 60 miles an hour. Tides were already higher than normal - as they are now with Irene headed this way.

The Great Hurricane produced tides from New London, Conn., east to Massachusetts' Cape Cod that were between 18 feet and 25 feet, the weather service said. Communities along the Narragansett Bay were devastated. Storm surges of 12 feet to 15 feet destroyed most of the homes along the coast there. A surge of nearly 20 feet left Providence drowning in water. Years later, the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier would be built to try to shield the capital city from repeat devastation.

For those who lived through the Great Hurricane - and many of them have since died - Irene's impending arrival has brought some of the memories back. Three other residents at the Tockwotton Home, a Providence-based assisted-living facility and nursing home, shared what they remember with the Associated Press on Thursday.

For Leah Abrams, 92, the Great Hurricane put life on hold for much longer than that. She, her parents and three brothers were without electricity or gas at their home in Bristol, a city on Narragansett Bay's east side, for six weeks, she said. She remembered how the boats from a local manufacturer were just carried up and away, left scattered all over the roadway.

"I shiver every time I hear" about Hurricane Irene, Abrams said. "Let's hope it bypasses" New England.